Dmz Tp Vol 04 Friendly Fire

Sometimes a book, a song, a movie, or another piece of art falls into your hands at a perfect moment, where the ideas within seem to dovetail with your life. Brian Wood's DMZ: Friendly Fire is one of those works for myself, and perhaps others who have a family member or friend deployed in Iraq or Afghanistan.

The DMZ series so far has been entertaining, if at times heavy-handed with it's political messages. With the Friendly Fire arc, however, Wood manages to tell a nuanced story about the high cost of modern warfare on those who fight it, and those who it is fought around. Where past issues of DMZ had clear "good guys" and "bad guys," the resounding message of Friendly Fire is that in urban war, the lines of morality become blurred and nearly everyone involved becomes a victim of the situation which they are thrust into.

The most tragic character in Friendly Fire is that of PFC Stevens. Having enlisted only as a result of legal trouble, Stevens is thrust into the untenable position of fighting a faceless enemy in a city full of civilians who are indistinguishable from the insurgents. Under-trained, armed to the teeth, and completely isolated, he finds himself a participant in a massacre of unarmed civilians.

The character of Stevens represents the deepest fears I have for my close relative who is currently deployed just outside Baghdad. Beyond the immediate physical danger, I worry about the situations he is being placed in, and the decisions his leaders make. I know my cousin to be a moral person, but in the chaos of urban warfare who knows what mistakes can be made. In the words of DMZ protagonist Matty Roth, "Is sending roving pack of young soldiers into a civilian area with sh**ty training and no intel and expecting results a defensible act?"

It is easy to slip into complacency and relegate the debate over the war to the arena of politics - something to be discussed as casually as rebate checks, health insurance plans, or call-girl scandals. At the risk of sounding melodramatic, that is exactly why DMZ: Friendly Fire is so important. With this book, Brian Wood is reminding us that war has a great human toll on everyone involved - soldiers, non-combatants, and citizens alike.